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Mann lake vs dadant frames

23K views 41 replies 20 participants last post by  wbee 
#1 ·
I need to order additional wood frames and have bought Dadants in the past. They have always been exceptional quality. I was thinking about buying from Mann Lake though because they have the free shipping. How does the quality of their frame compare to Dadant? Thanks
 
#36 ·
I live an hour away from them. All my boxes are from them and they do have good quality. They are supposed to be making completed frames soon and i'm looking forward to see them. It's nice to be able to call in an order and then go pick it up also.
 
#38 ·
I ordered a bunch of commercial deep (20), medium (25) boxes and frames for all of them from ML. I have had no issue with the frames. I order the split bottom frames as I have noticed that foundation is a little long and the split bottom doesn't require me to cut all the foundation down.

The boxes on the other hand had a few pieces that had huge knots or cracked the length of the board. I called ML and explained my issues and they replaced ever board I had issues with at there expense.

I am a customer service driven person. I will pay more for something for the service, but I am also not buying things in the huge quantity that the commercial guys are.
 
#39 ·
To answer some of the questions here: first - Dadant frames are ponderosa pine, not the other way around. None come from Argentina, New Zealand or are made of punkier white pine.

Second - Dadants bottom bar is 1/2" thick. Western Bee made this the new standard in 2007 (we'd been making 1/2 bottom bars as a custom order product for 25 years), and soon thereafter our competitors all followed suit and made it their standard as well. We didn't have a frame assembly machine at the time - so that had nothing to do with this change. A thicker bottom bar reduces blow-outs in the extracting process.

Our top bar is a FULL 3/4" thick compared to the thinner top bar of our competitor. What does this full 3/4" do for you? It allows you to run a staple through the end bar into the top bar. Why is this important to you? It reduces blow-outs in the extracting process and if you've had bees long enough and haven't put that staple in, at some point you've seen the top bar pull out of the end bar as you're trying to pull a frame out of a hive.

Western Bee now produces assembled frames. It's a great thing from my end for one reason: when there's a QC problem, we catch it right now - if something's not fitting together as it should, our people on that assembly machine catch it right now and we shut down whatever we need to shut down right now and get that problem straightened out.

Then there's the so-called free shipping. You are the consumer - you can do what you want. I would encourage you to take a little extra time and do some comparing - just as an example, I compared final delivered cost of different quantities of hive bodies to various places west of the Mississippi and found my prices with shipping were better than the "free shipping" program offered elsewhere. So is it really free shipping? It's your call - feel free to call/email me if you want to make a comparison.

Thanks,

Rick Molenda, Gen. Mgr.
Western Bee
 
#40 ·
There ya go folks, right from the "horses mouth". I won't disagree with any of it. I like to price around and always seem to come back to Dadant/Western. Their prices are always competitive and we have never had an issue with quality. I am not going to chase a few bucks of savings down somewhere else and not be sure of what I will end up with.
 
#41 ·
Wbee wrote:
We didn't have a frame assembly machine at the time - so that had nothing to do with this change.

But dadant did, correct? With all respect, I still do not see the need for a thicker bottom bar(just added weight). The thinner bar did not cause us any problems the last 100 plus years.

I do agree that the staple/nail through the end bar into the top bar is very important, and refrain from purchasing any top bars that are not as thick as yours. .

Roland Diehnelt
Linden Apiary, est. 1852
 
#42 ·
Yes, Dadants had a frame assembler at the time and we asked them whether we would need to keep making the 3/8 bottom bar for that. They agreed the 1/2" bottom bar was a good idea and modified machine to accept them. And as I mentioned - all of our competitors quickly followed suit. We still get customers asking for 3/8" bottom bars, and we can do that, but less wood in the weight bearing bottom bar does stand a better chance of blowing out, and our goal is to continue providing the strongest frame on the market so our customers can spend their hard earn dollars building their operation up vs. replacing current equipment.
 
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